Acting Chairperson Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Nosheen Javed acknowledged that the revised tax collection target of Rs 5.2 trillion is likely to be revised further downward for 2019-20 keeping in view the estimated Rs 800 billion shortfall during the fiscal year. The FBR has registered over one million new income tax return filers, who deposited over Rs 4 billion as taxes during the ongoing financial year, Nosheen Javed said.
Briefing the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which held its meeting Tuesday under the chairmanship of Rana Tanveer Hussain, Nosheen responding to various questions raised by the committee members, said that the government first set tax collection target at Rs 5.5 trillion for 2019-20, which was later revised to Rs 5.2 trillion and now the government was likely to revise it further.
She said that the tax collection target was likely to miss by Rs 800 billion against original target of Rs 5.5 trillion owing to massive reduction in imports.
Nosheen Javed said that the FBR had witnessed growth of 17 percent in revenue collection during the month of February 2020 with collecting additional revenue of Rs 345 billion.
"We have ended negotiations with the IMF, which has expressed satisfaction over the FBR performance," the acting FBR chairperson claimed. So far, the FBR has collected Rs 2.509 trillion during July-January (2019-2020), which is 96 percent of the set target for this period.
She added that in the first six months, the FBR collected 40 percent of the set target and the remaining 60 percent target was achieved during the last six months. Responding to questions of the committee members regarding the performance of ailing chairman FBR Shabbar Zaidi, she said that private sector individual especially Shabbar Zaidi brought some positive changes in the organization.
Shabbar Zaidi is still ill and on medical leave. However, the committee members stressed the need for appointing new FBR chairman within the organization either from Inland Revenue Service or Pakistan Customs Group. Dr Hamid Ateeq Sarwar of the FBR briefing the participants of the PAC on the FATF said that the FBR's tasks under the FATF included dealing with cross-border movement of money, tax evasion, and monitoring of some businesses.
Javed Ali, member Customs Policy of the FBR said that legal changes in the customs rules with regard to money laundering, movement of currency and gold had been finalized. He said that as per new rulers punishment to the accused would be based upon nature of the crime explaining, "If a person was involved in a huge money laundering case he will get maximum punishment and if a person was involved in a small amount of money laundering his punishment will be accordingly."
Ali maintained that Pakistan was facing serious challenges of movement of money problems on the Iranian and the Afghan border as both the countries are cash starved, but the FBR is taking all possible measures to check the menace. Talking about the matters pertaining to income tax and sales tax refunds, the FBR officials said, "We have received claims of Rs 66.01 billion of which over Rs 30 billion have been paid".
In the past two months, Rs 17 billion were cleared and overall so far we have paid Rs 32 billion, Nosheen said. The acting FBR chairperson said that coronavirus had also had an impact on tax collection, affecting exports and imports, which would have significant impact on tax collections. Supply side shock in tax collection is expected in Pakistan, however we are getting just one percent taxes from exports, imports are playing a crucial role in our tax collection, she said.
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